Invention/Discovery

Book Jacket

The first form the dust jacket took was as plain paper covered boards on books, occasionally with a printed label on the spine at the end of the 18th Century. This form was intended to be temporary, like most early forms of the dust jacket. It was the publishers themselves that first fashioned the oldest book jackets out of leather, wallpaper and other materials, initially to protect the delicate bindings, and the first official dust jacket appeared at the end of 1820s.

Below show examples of the variation in more vintage and modern dust jackets:

The most famous example of the dust jacket is the first edition publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in 1925. Withe the jacket, this book can fair up to between $20,000 and $30,000, compared to the $1,000 the book is considered to be worth without it.

Other examples of the most prized dust jacket collections include most of Hemingway's titles and first editions of classics such as J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye and Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.

A section taken from an article by James Furgusson, arguing what importance a dust jacket has:

"Dust jackets have long been noticed as design objects: the first International Book-Jacket Exhibition was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1949, and many books have been devoted to book covers in general, two notably, in 2001 and 2003, by Alan Powers. But G. Thomas Tanselle is the first writer to outline an orthodox history. In its nature, much of his work is initial ground-clearing, but at least future book historians should now be able to see where they’re going. For the first time, the dust jacket has been given its due status: in the rich density of his footnotes, the splendour of his eight indexes, Tanselle is nothing less than magisterial."

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1029591.ece

Decorative Dust Jackets

The Victoria and Albert museum has previously exhibited the History of the Dust Jacket, in which it is detailed that the main form of decoration prior to that on a dust jacket was confined to the bindings, so in the late 19th Century, the jackets were designed with 'windows' on the spine that allowed the detail of the binding to be displayed. The decorative dust jacket only started when these binding designs were replicated onto the jacket in order to protect the original binding.

A section from 'The History of the Dust Jacket', detailing some of the features of the Dust Jacket exhibition at the V&A:

"The oldest dust jackets held in the British Library Dust Jacket Collection date from 1919. Because of their ephemeral nature, there are few surviving examples of early dust jackets prior to the 1890s. The earliest existing example of a decorative dust jacket is thought to be a wrapper which was recently rediscovered in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The wrapper is for a silk-bound gift book called Friendship's Offering and is white with the title in black, enclosed by a decorative border. The wrapper was designed to enclose the book completely, traces of the sealing wax used to hold it in place can still be seen on the paper. Prior to this discovery, the earliest known example of a dust jacket was a 'pale buff paper printed in red' that was created in 1833 by the publisher Longmans to protect copies of Heath's Keepsake. This early dust jacket even included advertisements for other publications by Longmans, showing that the firm was way ahead of its time in terms of marketing its wares."

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history-of-the-dust-jacket/

Dust Jackets for Advertising

Once Dust Jackets became a decorative feature of the book, it came to the attention of publishers that these could be used for promotion of the books and other publications. This is when the dust jacket became increasingly decorative and as a result, increasingly important as a promotional tool to the book, but also for the publishers to promote more of their material.

Visual Puns in Graphic Design

As a field that is almost entirely dependent on the visual aspect of information, the prospect of being humorous or witty within Graphic Design depends solely on visuals. However, where design is an at an advantage is with visual puns. Telling a joke entails creating a vivid image for the recipient to understand, but in design, they can be shown. The most skilful and effective form of wit, must appear effortless but be seemingly loaded with meaning.

The puns significance a visual component of wit might relate to how, in terms of words, it is ridiculed for being a very low form and that it plays on the varied meaning of the same or similar word. The fact that it's a play on words mean that the visual pun has to be much more creative, and doesn't have the same 'rules' as visual puns. So much more information can be translated through one image than through one sentence and the best puns, both verbal and visual, are manipulations of communication.

Charles Lamb was quoted in Eli Kince's Visual Puns in Design stating that puns are "a pistol let off at the ear, not a feather to tickle the intellect".

One designer that exhibits a keen understanding of how the brain accesses and interprets imagery is Noma Bar, most recognisable for his references to existing figures and plots of films within his designs:

Tea For Two

Where There's Darkness

Stephen Fry

The Dark Knight Rises

Citizen Kane